The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
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David Heath
Thursday, 04 February 2010 13:38
IT Policy - Government Tech Policy
This morning's court decision says iiNet is not responsible for their customers illegal downloads. Is it "gentlemen, start your engines?"
In the Roadshow Films et al vs. iiNet Limited case concluded this morning, Judge Cowdroy summarized the nub of the case very clearly when he said that "The critical issue in this proceeding was whether iiNet, by failing to take any steps to stop infringing conduct, authorised the copyright infringement of certain iiNet users."
Then, by sifting through the evidence presented to him, concluded that "While I find that iiNet had knowledge of infringements occurring, and did not act to stop them, such findings do not necessitate a finding of authorisation. I find that iiNet did not authorise the infringements of copyright of the iiNet users. "
Summarising the remainder of the decision, the Judge made it very clear that the studios etc delivered plenty of evidence that copyright infringement was occurring, but effectively none that iiNet condoned or authorised the downloads, pointing out that "The evidence establishes that iiNet has done no more than to provide an internet service to its users."
The Judge then follows with "There does not appear to be any way to infringe the applicants' copyright from the mere use of the internet. Rather, the 'means' by which the applicants' copyright is infringed is an iiNet user's use of the constituent parts of the BitTorrent system. iiNet has no control over the BitTorrent system and is not responsible for the operation of the BitTorrent system."
So, good news for users of Torrent downloads – whether legally or not; there will be no interruption to the service. One might even opine that this decision will make it very difficult to add filtering of Torrent protocols to the Government's Internet Filter proposal.
But, what of the state of illegal downloading? Are the floodgates about to be opened?
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